Tata in Africa continues to empower through education and employability skills
October 05, 2018
The Final Year Strategic Marketing students from the Department of Business Management at the University of the Free State (UFS) presented marketing ideas for Tata trucks and busses to a panel of judges as part of the Tata Postgraduate Scholarship Programme on September 27, 2018.
It was a day filled with hard work and jubilation as students presented innovative marketing strategies with the intent to enhance the business’s market share for Tata trucks and busses in South Africa.
Dominique de Kock and Angelo Arendse shared first place for their ideas. Dominique developed an app to assist Tata truck owners in managing their fleet. The app also helps to get the truck drivers to develop healthier habits through gamification attributes. Angelo suggested the TATA’mazing race, during which activations will take place to connect with the current clients as well as their truck drivers. Both these students received a bursary of R45,000 each as well as a six-week internship in December 2018 and January 2019.
Sumaya Surtie was awarded R35,000 as well as an internship for her idea to target nursery owners with Tata’s Super Ace by using Tanya Visser as brand ambassador for her six-month marketing campaign. Surtie expressed her gratitude for the scholarship the scholarship saying: “The Tata scholarship means the world to me. It provides me with an opportunity to pursue the career of my dreams. It has also provided me with the means to continue my academic journey into honours. It really showed me that hard work and persistence will pay off in the long run, and to always stay focused and humble.”
The day ended with 12 academically and financially deserving students being awarded scholarships towards their postgraduate studies in 2019. The scholarships add up to the amount of R320,000.
While engaging with the students, the Executive Director of Tata Africa Holdings, Mr Len Brand said, “A great marketer always experiments and always looks to the latest trends to stay on the cutting edge. We are most impressed with the students’ innovative strategies which will certainly rejuvenate our products’ positioning in the market. We hope that ultimately, the students’ creativity will inspire better innovative strategies in business, government, and civil society. That will brand South Africa and Africa as top investment destinations.”
This Postgraduate Scholarship programme was created by Dr Johan Van Zyl from the UFS Department of Business Management in 2012 in collaboration with Tata Africa Holdings. The aim of the programme is to provide final-year Strategic Marketing students with an opportunity to apply their theoretical knowledge, by developing practical marketing strategies for any one of the Tata group companies operating in Africa.
With the current unemployment rate amongst the youth of South Africa in mind, a new initiative was established with the purpose of providing students with Work-integrated-learning (WIL) by giving six students the opportunity to participate in a summer internship in December 2018/January 2019 at Tata Head Office, before they commence with their studies in 2019.
Since the Tata group began the Scholarship Programme in 2006, over 250 scholarships have been awarded through the University of the Free State, the University of Kwazulu Natal and WITS University. In addition to the scholarships, the Tata group contributes to the national objective of increasing the number of women scientists in under-served research areas, through the Women in Science Awards (WISA) programme and a study partnership with the Department of Science and Technology.
